SNOWWONDER

Another 4-5 inches of snow is falling and all the footprints of the past weeks are covered in a pristine blanket of white that unrolls itself up the back hill and breathes a soft quiet throughout the woods. Stephen and Sadie and I have been heading into the woods for snowshoe adventures because our teenager puppy needs a safe haven to pretend she is a snowshoe hare. She bombs through the woods making Hopkin tracks, and following them again. Walking with her is comical and I find myself outdoors more often and laughing out loud because of her. She has drawn me away from the rhythmic noise of my treadmill into the deep silence of the snowy woods where I breathe and sweat almost every step in the knee deep new powder. The snow depth and the uphill climb together give me a workout full of wonder. It is so quiet I wonder if I can hear the trees breathing. The old yellow beech leaves quake in the wind...they shiver and shake and make a song. Tat-a-tat-a-tat...and somewhere nearby a woodpecker drums out a rhythm and seems to sing along. The woods are full of music even when they are silent. Today is the last day of February and I am wondering how to empty my mind to become fresh and new like a baby's innocent awareness. How to reach back and allow my mind to be unknowing, to not have any labels for things but to see all with the freshness of a baby or a puppy. Sadie bounces along through the woods...through the snow...she trusts her feet and her nose and she doesn't worry about what lies underneath and if she sinks in up to her back, she just swims. She frolics like she is an integral part of the woods ...like a beech leaf quaking in the breeze.

Lately, I've been very aware of my breath interacting with the exhalation of trees. It

Is on my mind almost every time I walk into the woods. Before Sadie came, I spent much too much time inside and now I am aware of a stiff heaviness that falls away when I am in the woods with my heart wide open. It's almost as if the cubic shape of the building has become a crusty form around me and when I am among the forest trees, they lift me free from the constraints of too much man made surround sound. I wonder if the deer can hear my laughter or the turkeys our sharp whistles. I am sensing myself as an animal creature and trying to remember that my consciousness is embedded in the natural world as much a part of the forest as the trees and animals and rocks. This is a frame of mind that replenishes my good humor.

Yesterday Stephen and I watched "THE COVE". It is a horrifying reality like so many others where the beauty of creation lies in the evil clutches of a shortsighted and greedy species called Man. Watching the dolphin slaughter made my guts feel wrenched like they did when the news was broadcasting the animals and birds washing up in the oil slick in the gulf. Tears are natural and flow easily. What I fail to understand is how humans can continue to degrade all of Mother Nature when so little is left. Is it that hard to see that our species is just one animal amongst many? That we interrelate with all species and there is intelligence beyond what science can prove? When I walk in the woods, the trees do not care what I'm wearing or if my hair is combed.. Yet I feel them welcome me. There is a silent invitation to enter the woods and to become at home as one of the creatures breathing the air. There is a relief that welcomes all of myself. I don't need to pretend to be someone I am not. I don't have to put on any airs or behave in a particularly civilized way. I don't want to be a human who is separated from all of nature by pride and self importance. When I think of myself as "knowing", I become separated from what I behold but if I am exploring...the woods become new and full and different from a few moments ago. I guess that is what the Buddhists call Beginners Mind. An open mind doesn't have all the answers and it doesn't know all the labels and if it does, it allows the possibility of not-knowing and because of that, it...the open mind...has wisdom. What can I do for the Dolphins? What can I do for the turtles and pelicans and fish along the gulf coast?

I can go into the woods as a fellow creature, open to the tall teachers and small nuances of change and I can be moved by the signs as they change day to day. I feel relieved. I do not want to identify with the monsters who slaughter 23,000 dolphins a year or the big corporations that bleed oil into the sea...they are all human created and yet I fear that creation. I fear the pride that leads humans to believe they are the only intelligent life of the planet and especially the white supremacists that believe only in themselves. I prefer to aspire to that beautiful female cardinal with the orange beak and soft peachy feathers who is at home in the vast openness of sky. I prefer to seek solace in the trustworthiness of nature...she who follows cycles and rhythms of wave, of season, of weather. The songs of the whales, the dolphins, the birds...thats the music I yearn to play...the song that seeps out of my deep nature. When I go into the woods...I think I hear it.

SADIE UNLEASHED

Sadie is 5 months old. She has been a remarkably good puppy and so smart. Two of those 5 months she has spent living with us. When we brought her home she stuck by us without any effort on our part. Her smallness and vulnerability insured her presence right at our heels and her insecurity about her new home motivated obedience and good behavior. We considered ourselves fortunate to have a next door neighbor's young St. Bernard/Lab mix puppy as a playmate. Together, they would play tug, engage in mock fights, run in circles around each other and speak their doggy hearts to one another. But there has been a huge change in the past week or so and our habits are sure going to have to change to meet the challenge.

It has been rather easy to out smart Sadie into coming when I call. Lately, she loves her pal Daisy so much that she becomes deaf to my calling and lately, she'll start running toward me when I call and within 5 feet of coming all the way, she turns and runs back to her friend. Our day usually begins with a greeting at the crate door and a race down the stairs to the back door...out the door for a pee and poop over behind the garage pad. She does her business and together we trot back to the kitchen door to go inside for breakfast. I've tried to keep the first morning outing all about the business. Yesterday and today have been gorgeous and sunny and Sadie has suddenly changed her tune. She has trotted out the door and headed toward the bathroom spot and half way there, she turns around and races over to the neighbors house ignoring all my calls and whistles. Sadly, I am resigning myself to the fact that Sadie unleashed may be a dangerous proposition. She loves her freedom. She runs with all her heart and throws herself pinecones to bat and chase along the icy crusted snow. She leaps in the air and sails over the bigger dog with the greatest of ease. She is an acrobat and full of happy energy and her friendship with Daisy makes us smile. They are so comical and so far, when they play together, they stay up at the back of the house. But when I call and call and she ignores me totally, I get frustrated and have to plot ways to draw her near so I can ambush her and pick her up to carry her home.

I have headed up the woods path because she can't resist an outing. I have lured her with bits of hot dog and even Daisy comes when the hot dog container is waved in the air. I make them sit for their treat and I always treat them immediately if they have come to my call. I have thrown myself in the snow to encourage a rumble and when she's not dodging me, I grab hold of her and carry her home. But now , when Daisy is out, Sadie has begun to sense when I want her to come home and she won't have any part of it. Freedom is a wonderful thing but dangerous if the dog doesn't mind your commands. I believe her hormones are kicking in now that she is nearing her time to be spayed. She started humping Daisy. Guess that officially makes her a teenager. Her hunger for freedom and her obession to be with her friend reminds me of parenting my boys.

They, the boys, needed to practice flapping their wings and certainly, they needed freedom to explore their environment and engage what life brings them on their independent path. Sadie needs that same space and trust...but until there is obedience, I walk a fine line between trust and mistrust. And I find that reflected in Sadie's response to me. She too walks a line between trust and mistrust. Now she grabs her treat and runs away..unsure if I'm going to grab her and bring her into the quiet boring house when she only wants to hang with her friend. Alas, I fear the days of going outside unleashed for excersise and freedom is going to end. It's dangerous to give a teen all the freedom they desire and foolish to trust them without question...be they dog or human . It would be ideal if they could be relied on to do what you ask, but in reality, it takes long and patient trial and error to create the kind of devotion that makes an animal want to mind. It looks like Sadie will need to be leashed when we go outside and taken places where she can run free. Her dates with Daisy need to be determined by us and not by her. I guess it's only natural to feel a little sad about moving from the all loving mother to the leash wielding teacher but I've got my eyes on the prize and it will not be a dog who does what she wants willy nilly. Nope. It will be a dog who comes when called...and one who can tolerate the leashed walks around town as easily as the romps in freedom through the woods.

SUNSETS

Last night's sunset was heavy on the oranges and yellows...a startling contrast to the more frequent rose/pinks and reds. I might have thought it was a portent for a major change given the bizarre weather we've been having. It went from -8 on Thursday morning to 55 degrees and sunny...two glorious days of warm air and sunshine, bluebird skys and the promise of spring. But last night the wind came up. The wild, whipping kind of wind that breaks trees and steals unancored items off the back porch and that whistles an eery song through the cracks in the house. I love that wind but it also scares me. It is cold and cutting...brisk and killing.

Sam and Cass arrived for a visit at 3:30 in the morning. I got up to pee and they were coming up the stairs to bed. We hugged and they told me they had spun out on the driveway and their car was stuck across the driveway with its rear end stuck in the snow. They were unable to get it out and too tired to keep trying. So we all went to bed. Why did I not ask for the keys? I tossed and turned until my alarm went off at 5:15 wondering if I was going to be late for work. I woke Stephen to help me and called in at work to let them know I'd be late. We proceeded to get out the dirt, the shovels and to get the keys. The dome light was left on too and I feared a dead battery. By 6:30 I knew we'd be able to get it free so I started up my car to warm it up and ran inside to finish getting ready...mind you it is the first day of February vacation and the strong winds would mean wind holds and lots of people in the hotel. But after my shift I would be off for four days. Stephen told me I had to read a funny e-mail my sister sent, so I brought it up and read it and laughed till I cried. Then I scrolled up and saw an e-mail about my cousin Sharon. Sharon died the previous morning...a beautiful mid-age mother, wife, friend, artist and gardener who has 2 young children taken way too early by cancer.

Suddenly all my efforts to get out to work seemed so petty and superficial. I was punched in the gut with the sudden tears of a lost loved one. I bawled like a baby and it was quite clear that it would not be a day for me to try to cope with the mobs of people who had complaints about the wind holds or the hotel noise. All of the events described, happened before 7 AM. In one cold, cutting gust, my whole day turned around and my family changed shape.

The sun set on one beautiful and creative life. What was the end of a day for me was the end of her life. I am no stranger to death. I have lost many family members and had lots of practice digesting the passing of a loved one. My heart is open to both grief and joyous celebration and I allow myself the full range of my emotions. When a loved one passes, there is always a sense of surprise...no matter how long you are aware it is coming...when it comes I am stunned...startled by the permanence of the loss, by the freshness of the vulnerability and by the intensity of feeling. When I went walking in the woods with Sadie after the news, I wrapped my arms around a tree. I could feel the wind moving the highest branches and when the strong gust hit, I could hear and feel the creaking moans from deep within the tree. I pressed my aching heart against the tree and watched as the wind created a forest of waving branches and in my heart, I felt the movement and the waving goodbye to a beautiful sister who inpired with her art, shared stories with the elderly, mothered her children tenderly and grew an incredible garden full of nourishment and love. She was a very private person and for some reason, she kept extended family at a distance during her struggle. I regret that I have no memories of her for at least 3 years. I have to reach deeper. Memories of a bonfire with all of us sitting and talking under the stars...watching Larry, her husband, joyfully creating an ice rink for the kids, beers by the fire at Coombs Rd. and of course the treasure trove of childhood moments... Christmas open houses and little girls in velvet dresses...Easter Egg hunts and huge Thanksgiving gatherings ( complete with cranberry sauce in turkey shapes) with my father, mother and us 5 girls at their house with Uncle John and Aunt Mimi and their 5 kids. There were sometimes 30 sitting around the huge table. Maybe one effect of a large, opinionated family is to encourage an individual to carve space... like the cold cutting wind that artfully carves cornices of snow, and to create a niche of privacy where the primary relationship is between yourself and yourself. ..where the quiet is deep and the stillness replenishing. Where you commune only with those closest to you and seek solace in the restorative powers of nature. That was how Sharon carried out her last days...in a deeply private place.

Today, when the sun rose and cast it's pink light on the white distant mountains...my family set off for a hiking adventure. I opted to hike alone with the dog up threw the back woods and let them go...all seven of them. In the past I might have then beaten myself up and questioned my motive for being alone. Today, in honor of Sharon, I opt to share my heart with Sadie and deep nature and to write my blog. I will not give myself a raft of crap about isolating myself or finding my family too much to take. No. None of those things are true. I choose to take a walk by myself. I choose to listen to myself. I choose to write. And I choose to let solitude be my right. It is not sick to want solitude when facing the deep inner truth of yourself

and it is healthy to embrace death, trees and dear ones...here and gone. I feel like I am beginning a climb out of my old self defeating mind tapes and into the freedom and power of a new and positive reframe. My circle of guardian angels has just grown.

UNLIKELY TEACHERS

This morning began with Sadie's first encounter with wild turkeys. She dashed out at them all full of machismo, barking to beat the band. They headed unhurried, up the hill into the woods behind the house. They hardly seemed phased but Sadie dashed back to me and the safety of the back porch, shaking. Hard to tell if the turkeys scared her or if it was her own bravado that sent her reeling back for love and comfort. I recognized myself in that moment. Sometimes I just dash something off and hit the send button or the publish button in the flush of the moment and then experience the heebeejeebees...a form of writers remorse. But I am also that person who writes for years in the closet and carefully stacks up spiral notebooks in the cabinet knowing that most of what I write will never be read. I guess I'm kind of glad about that because in order to practice writing wild and free, you have to get out of your head and just let the writing rip...unexamined and uncensored. Some of my very best writing comes out of those dashed off pages...and yet some of my worst does too.

I'm a kinesthetic learner. I learn best in motion and was never too good at school because of being required to sit and listen endlessly to information that didn't seem too relevant. If I can't be in motion, I need to keep my pen moving...spirals and lines, angles and dangles...doodling was my way to stay in motion without getting the teacher angry with me. I'm also the kind of person who digests information by creating associations, metaphors and comparisons. So it seems like I'm going off on tangents but what I'm really doing is relating what I'm learning to what I already know. This self awareness has been a very long time coming.

Today was race day at Sunday River. The Budweiser Locals challenge race is a community race opportunity for all age and ability folks to get out and ski gates and then to meet and compare times at a local pub party. It's fun. Now....anyway. Last year, not so much. Last year was my first year participating in the race and this is what I've discovered. Skiing is my zen meditation. It teaches me how to live my life better. I'm a thinker. I spend way too much time and energy thinking about what might happen...what could happen...what I don't want to happen. I'm all jammed up in my head. Skiing forces me into my whole body. I can't do it in my head. And funnily enough, its been my writing teacher. Thanks to racing, I discovered that my thinking is not my friend. I positon myself in the starting gate and a maelstrom of fears swirl in my head...what if I fall? What if I screw up? What if there's ice...what if I hit a rut? What will folks think? Blah Blah Blah. I hear that all happening in my head and the starter says Racers ready? Go. And there...right at that moment, I push myself through the timing wire and drop into the course. Freaked out and scared shitless, I go. I go anyway. All I know is, I'm going to do the best I can to cross the finish line. If it means snowplowing the whole way, so be it. And no one is watching me to critisize. That's been a very freeing awareness. So how does that teach me to write?

I sit before a white page with my pen in hand...my head starts telling me I'm a lousy writer, I don't have anything worthwhile to say, people aren't going to understand me, what if I say something stupid? I get all jammed up and end up tripping over my own negative thoughts. Thanks to ski racing and the practice of JUST DO IT...I'm now familiar with my brain in fear and I am free to choose not to listen. Now I see that every moment that requires me to listen to my fear and choose to move past it, is a teaching moment and an opportunity to move past my limitations. I tell my fearful thoughts to beat it and I start writing anyway...I just drop into the writing...and somehow I go somewhere with it. I never know where I'm going to begin with, but I do go somewhere and the flow is always best if I can let it rip. The writing takes me to new terrain and the only way I get there is to JUST DO IT.

Sadie moves on her animal instincts. She rushes forward to greet whatever is on the path and she turns bits of nothing into toys that she tosses and chases. She is wholly in her body and her intelligence is instinctive. She doesn't always think before she acts. Yes. That can be dangerous. Yes...she might regret getting involved in something. But she engages her world with her full body/mind and allows herself to play with it all...turkeys included.

Who is that wild woman dancing on top of my asparagus bed? Who's voice is that beneath the boring repetitive thoughts of a timid non-doer? Who's that big and courageous watch dog beneath that young puppy body? Who am I underneath the holding back?

It's just my wild free self ...stretching and breathing, running... unleashed.

SAM'S SKY

This photo was taken by my son Sam. I chose it for today's posting because it stirs a holy light in my heart and today is Saint Valentines Day. I breathe in the wide expanse of sky and feel the slow thrum of my heartbeat. Something is choking me up...a thickness in my throat...perhaps something that I have not spoken or expressed is asking to be heard. Sky was the name of one of our parakeets years ago. Just Saturday, Sam texted us that he had passed over the Connecticut River and spotted an adult bald eagle and two juveniles in the very same spot where many years ago, I saw my first bald eagle soaring. I felt such gratitude to Sam for spotting it, that I wept. I had given up thinking I might ever see a wild and free bald eagle thanks to the damge done to our ecosystem. And yet, that sighting was the first of many and now...where I live by the Androscoggin River we see bald eagles almost daily during the summer and fall. Eagles are omens of powerful healing...at least in my life. Look at the photo of the sky and just imagine soaring effortlessly under and above the wisps of cloud and over the verdent carpet that covers the mountains. It is a vision that bursts through limits and gives me a taste of eternity.

My heart aches for my cousin. She is so young. So absolutely necessary to her preteen children and her beloved...yet she is in the throws of a life and death struggle with cancer...and yet my mother in law is in a nursing home with Dementia and a strong body that keeps on keeping on even though she has lost all visible quality of life. The two situations stand in stark contrast to each other and seem to rise up in my heart as a response to this "blue true dream of sky". I can imagine angels might gather in the rays of light and peace is emanating from the cerulean blue. I can imagine there is some natural intelligence behind the matter I can see, in the heart of the heartwood so to speak. I think sometimes that our religions do us a disservice by conditioning us to believe in heaven as an afterlife occurence and that if our minds could be as open as this sky shot, we might actually be able to take into our hearts a heaven that is right here and right now. I feel a movement in my heart.

Could it be the stirring of a soul bird? The inner sap beginning to dream of moving upward through the tree's canopy? Or perhaps the flutter of a deep love that begins to seek expression in the outer world? I think of my Dad during his last days when cancer had confined him to his third floor bedroom. He called it his "aerie"...a word used to describe an eagles nest. I think of a dream I had years ago of an eagle throwing itself against a window in an effort to break the glass...and I remember Stephen promising to find me an eagle feather at the National Zoo when we were newly weds. I didn't believe him. He found me one anyway. There is something about eagles and the ability to do the impossible...perhaps a heart letting go of fear and doubt so that the impossible can be manifest. This is a quality also ascribed to love...love gives us the power to accomplish the so called impossible.

So with this wonderful sky photo as a prompt to envision the healing power of the eagle, I send out the great love of the eagle's energy to surround my cousin and mother-in-law in their struggles and I become filled with gratitude for all the blessings I am able to enjoy in my life today. I see Sam's sky and a timelapse sky that Will posted a few weeks ago. And I recall a poem I wrote once that began..."My heart is a wide dark sky" and today I feel like the light has come on. Happy Saint Valentines Day.

SNOW WONDERINGS

There's some more snow on the way and the weatherman says it'll be another 4 inches. I don't mind a bit. I'm a skier and every inch means real heaven made snow covering the trails. I'm not a big fan of man made snow. The consistency is strange and it has a greasy feel that slides into piles. It's great technology and Sunday River does a great job of keeping the trails covered and Lord knows, the area needs dependable snow to keep the skiers and riders coming. But somehow, it just doesn't feel right. Guess there is nothing better than the real thing. My deep instinct seems to be a mistrust of man made when the making is in competiton with the master...Mother Nature. Skiing on manmade snow is like...well, its like swimming in Lake Mead, that huge man made lake in Nevada. A real lake doesn't have treetops poking up from underneath the water and an aura of death about it. A real lake is an oasis for life and a multitude of living creatures. The experience of swimming in Lake Mead gave me the creeps. I felt an edginess, a lack of trust and to this day I wish I hadn't gone swimming there. It has always felt like a sin against nature.

The local newspaper had a story this week about a Barred Owl that has been flying into a barn in Bethel and taking the heads off chickens as the favored meal. A Barred Owl apparently isn't one for flying into a building under regular conditions. But the snow is deep and the cold has been cruel. When Sadie and I walk in the woods, there aren't many animal tracks at all. The wildlife must be hunkered down and living off stored fat. (Wish I could say the same for myself) So the consensus was that the owl was stressed out and starving. The poor thing had beheaded six chickens before a wildlife expert caught it in a mesh net and sent it to "detox". I was amused by the perception that the owl eating chicken heads was unnatural and the implication the owl needed detox...but apparently there are minerals and food morsels in the chicken brains that the owl was needing. Stessed by snow...yes. But a drunken chicken killer? I wonder how we humans determine that the way we think about things is the way things are.

Over and over I watch the weathermen predict the course of the weather based on their dopler radar and all their technological instruments...and over and over, they are wrong. It kind of makes a person wonder...is it really intelligent to think humans are the intelligent animal on the planet? Or might it not be smarter to begin to give some credit to the intelligence that the natural world is embedded in...the winds, the woods and trees and mountains? Perhaps if we humans began listening less to TV and computer technologies and "experts", we might learn something from the interrelationships of the creatures themselves. Perhaps we are all embedded in a primordial soup of intelligence. I know that the best weather forecast is found by going outside and taking a look for yourself. Why not believe that the owl knew exactly what it needed? I know the chickens might not like the idea of being on the menu at the fast food barn but why is it that the human agenda always takes precedence at great expense to earth and all the diverse lifeforms that share the planet with us? No wonder we have so much difficulty sorting out the real from the not as real. Maybe we would grow smarter if we took off our human lens and tried on the eyes of owls. Whooo whoooo, who cooks for you all? Might we see a vast web of interconnection...a beautiful mystery.

Under Winter's Surface

Winter cold just naturally slows us down as we are, after all... the human animal. Sadie , my 18 week old puppy is the only thing in my life that isn't slowed down, except perhaps my inner ski racer who finds the hard pack of February an exhilarating surface to experiment with speed. The cold is especially cold when you have to go out at night while the little animal does her little animal business. But the stars are exquisite and if she didn't have to go out, I might miss out on seeing the gorgeous star studded black night sky. Just 12 months ago, we made the decision to have our beloved dog put down after 14 years of devotion. We went almost exactly 1 year as a dog-less home and during those months, I came to experience what healing a dogs presence can offer. I became aware of how much company an animal is and how it's daily routine can enhance my own . I'm outside more...I walk more and rather than using the treadmill in my house for regular exercise, I snowshoe in the woods so Sadie can accompany me and use up some of her boundless energy and enthusiasm. Getting me into the woods during the heart of winter opens me up to the benefits of the trees that surround me as I walk. The air seems fresher in the woods and the silence, deeper. After all the snow storms, and the rhythmic beating down of the path that heads up the hill behind our house, the woods feels strangely still. I see no animal tracks except an occasional line of turkey tracks. Earlier in winter there were plenty of stories told in the tracks of the passing wildlife. Deer, birds, squirrel and all manner of fox and perhaps even bobcat...all wrote their presence in the snow. I experience the woods as quiet, deep, restorative and I stop often to gaze at the trees lacy profile against the sky. Sadie runs circles around me...and takes the hill three or four times to my one. She wears no shoes and when the snow is really deep, and soft, she swims. She is interested in absolutely everything she encounters and she hears things that I can't hear. I imagine she can hear the rustle and movement of the moles and shrew, mice and voles. She digs like she's headed to China and then pops up suddenly with her face covered in snow. She engages with everything that comes in her path. Her youthful ways are inspiring. I think about the milkweed in the summer...the smell of the flowers and the occasional monarch pupae I find underneath the leaves. In the cold of winter, the dead and empty shell of the pod pokes up through the deep snow. It reminds me of summer and butterflies. In November, I use the pods to make my wreaths because they look like birds perched on a limb. Now I see that the dead pods are puppy toys. They provide endless entertainment as they get batted around and buried and dug again. The dry brown pods covered with freshly fallen snow shimmering in afternoon sunlight are no longer the shells of the dead and gone. They are useful and noticed and serve a purpose even in death. They have surpassed themselves in life and become in the slow cold of deep winter, a work of art. Hmmmm. And way down under, they have all they need to rise to life again when the sun warms us all up.

SLOW DOWN

I guess the upside of not sleeping well at night is that one is forced to slow down one's pace during the day. That 2 word directive has been an appropriate fortune cookie since we moved to Maine. Now that we have lived here in Bethel for going on 11 years, I am finally beginning to get it. The pace of life is slower up here because it is embedded in the timing of the changing seasons. My pace of life in Marblehead was built on a rhythm that echoed the intensity of traffic, busy people and a little too much caffeine and like a fine sand, it wasn't even noticeable until it was gone and all that was left was a subtle sense that something was different. It has taken many years for me to slow my pace to match my environment if only to get in step with the dance of the seasons. I find that when I return to the old pace, I quickly become exhausted and because I am an empathic human, I often mirror the pace of my environment both psychologically and socially. I do so at my own peril.

Today I entered the soft white flakes falling silently in awe of the beauty. The trees reaching upward with white sleeves and fluffy white snow raising even the humblest dead plant to a work of art and I felt refreshed. I thought to myself...slow down. Slow down and let the puppies play and roll until their ears were decorated with hundreds of little snowballs...slow down and take some photos of the beauty around you...slow down and breathe in the healing breath the trees are breathing out. And before I knew it...it was lunch time. In a few seconds we had homemade pesto noodles with garden grown stewed tomatoes and crushed turkey bacon bits. Most of our meal came from my sore knees and sweat from the hot sun as I worked in the garden. I realized I've been marveling over the wonder of having such a nourishing stash of food in my freezer but I had not been savoring the depth...the meaning of growing ones own food...the wholehearted trust that nothing is chemically tainted...the flavors of the summer heat. As I slow down to deepen my appreciation for the goodness I have grown, I wonder how my homegrown food feeds my spirit...and as I write this little blog, I slowly become aware that the whole process...the growing, picking, packing and finally preparing...is the seed that sends up the green tendril of desire from my heart...to write again and create a new start. And the timing is perfect...all I need to do is slow down. When spring comes around and I return to the garden, it will be with a new sense of growing myself.

BLOGWILD BEGINNINGS

Last summer's garden is nourishing us this winter. Under the deep drifts of snow, my garlic is gathering the earth's power and my asparagus is sleeping. I am dreaming of working at a job that uses my gifts and gives me some enthusiastic appreciation. It's been a lifetime of seeking such a position. I have had many jobs...the list is long. Camp counselor, special ed support tech, massage therapist, electric meter reader, child case manager, childrens librarian, poet, writing coach and columnist...that doesn't cover all the jobs I've done for free. Being a mother was the most demanding and yet the most rewarding, and it included a litany of of sub-jobs; cook, taxi driver, stylist, housekeeper, tutor, art therapist, sports enthusiast, medicine maker, healer...and then of course the wife, friend and lover. Since we moved to Maine and began to build our lifestyle with a season and land based foundation, I have made attempts to create a vision of life that would also contribute financially to our family. The diving economy hit the western mountain area of Maine pretty hard and I must say...some days it feels like I'm bashing my head against a wall. When Stephen went through a quadruple bypass in May, I found myself curtailing most social and superficial activities as they all paled to the primary need to be with my beloved as he climbed out from under his physical changes. I poured myself into his care and to caring for my garden. Since that time, I've discovered that all the jobs of my life have been like seeds...planted and tended in my garden, they fascinate and nourish for a time but eventually, I pull them out by the roots and turn them back to the compost pile in hopes that they add nutrients to my next efforts. Today I sit in front of this page feeling a green tendril bursting through my heart and I ponder what it would be like to grow my own employment. When we first moved to Maine, I developed a vision of our property and called it Bogwild. Today...because writing is the thing in my life that has remained friendly and trustworthy and filled with imagination leading me along a path of wonder, I am beginning a new venture...thus the title Blogwild. It is an effort to reconnect with all that is natural, wild and free and growing out of me. I plan to use it as a space for musing over lessons learned as I follow the path that I create. Care to join me?